Flood Claim Update: August 21, 2012

Hello band members, I hope you had a memorable summer and offer my best wishes to the students returning to school, to our members returning to work, to our families preparing for the fall and to our Elders who are preparing for winter. I also offer my condolences to the many members who lost family this summer, who were band members, elected leaders and committed community builders, all of whom will be dearly missed and remembered by Muscowpetung Saulteaux First Nation.

I am pleased to advise that the Muscowpetung Flood Easement Survey was finally completed on August 13, 2012. This was a very complex two year process, that involved historic research, field work, defining boundaries and Ordinary High Water Marks, flood elevations, beds and shores, marshlands, Easement boundaries and Reserve Boundaries. All of which had to be scrutinized and acceptable to several departments in both the Governments of Saskatchewan and Canada, the Surveyor’s General Branch and Muscowpetung Saulteaux First Nation.

We have posted on this webpage the end result of this survey process titled: Flood Easement Map 1 and Flood Easement Map 2. These Easement Lands are the principal issue in this claim – therefore the maps are important to understand. We will be bringing large copies of these maps to the Information Meetings to explain the Settlement Agreement that was reached in order for Canada/Saskatchewan to be authorized to flood our reserve lands within the Easement boundary on an annual permanent basis.

We will be initialing the Settlement Agreements at the Health Centre at 11:00 on August 22, 2012. What this means is that the negotiator from the Government of Saskatchewan, the negotiator from the Government of Canada and I will initial each page of the Settlement Documents, so that all parties can have FINAL, conclusive and consistent copies of the documents to bring back to their governments, to complete their own respective internal processes needed to get authorized to execute the Agreement.

Our own internal process needed is called “Ratification”, which is governed by the Indian Referendum Regulations. We are working with our INAC Ratification Officer Tracy Dejarlais and our consultants to schedule this process in the near future. Once we have our ratification team scheduled, we will call a ratification vote that will include mailing out a full settlement package to your address on file. We are working to call this vote before August 31, 2012. Please keep checking back, as we will post a full Ratification information package under a separate tab on this website soon.

In summary – a positive ratification vote is needed from membership to authorize Chief and Council to sign the Settlement Agreements on behalf of Muscowpetung Saulteaux First Nation.

On August 15, 2012 we were advised that our Investment Manager had taken a position with another company and that a new Investment Manager would need to be chosen.

We are scheduled to finalize these Trust and Investment Agreements by August 29, 2012. Once finalized, we will post all Trust Agreements on our website and mail you out a full copy with the Settlement Package.

We have posted as of today’s date the FINAL copies of the Settlement Documents. Please note, that there have been some changes from the previous documents that have been posted on here. Please read these documents and contact our office with any questions or issues you have. We will also have the ratification team present, including our legal counsel, at the information meetings to answer any questions you may have. We can be contacted toll free at 1-866-848-4747, or directly at 1-306-723-4747.